Karl-Anthony Towns Set Minnesota’s Single-Game Scoring Record With 56 Points

Since the first moment Karl-Anthony Towns set foot in Minnesota, he joined a long tradition of Hall-of-Fame-bound big men. He was preceded by Kevin Love, who has since gone on to become an NBA champion alongside LeBron James, and Kevin Garnett, who played his most dominant individual seasons with the Timberwolves before becoming a Celtics legend later in his career.

Towns is emphatically next in line, and on Wednesday night, he gave one more reason why. Actually, 56 more reasons. In their home win over the lowly Atlanta Hawks, Towns set the franchise’s new single-game scoring record with 56 points on 19-of-32 shooting from the field, including a scorching hot 6-of-8 from three-point land.

He also added 15 rebounds, four assists, and a block to fill out a monster stat line that will ultimately go down as the best individual offensive performance in team history.

It’s also the 10th 50-point game in the Association this season, tying a league record, set last year.

It now seems staying up late on Tuesday night playing PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) with Ben Simmons didn’t affect him very much at all, just as Simmons hilariously predicted when told who Minnesota’s scheduled opponent was.

Though the young Timberwolves have assured that they’ll finish the season with a winning record for the first time in 13 years, they continue to cling to the eighth and final playoff spot in the West and hold just a two-game lead on the Clippers. They’ll need to play their best basketball from here on out to end a postseason drought that stretches all the way back to Garnett’s heyday in the mid-2000s, but if Towns can keep dominating like this they should find their way there.